Ottoman Official Resistance to Central Authorities’ Decisions Regarding the Deportation and Killing of Armenians in the Southern Theater of War (4th Army Corps. Zone)

Ottoman Official Resistance to Central Authorities’ Decisions Regarding the Deportation and Killing of Armenians in the Southern Theatre of War (4th Army Corps. Zone) Garabet K Moumdjian If a layman wants to educate himself/herself on the topic of “Turks helping or rescuing Armenians during the Genocide” and attempts a “Google Search” on the subject, the search will yield almost 2.5 million results. Of course the number is illusive since there are enormous amount of repetitions. However, one can still get a fair amount of information about the subject. The interesting thing here is that the major percentage of entries is Armenian in origin. However, if the same person attempts a search by typing “Ottoman Official resistance to Genocide” the results count drop to 60.000, which is replete with entries that have no relevance to the subject. Here again, the percentage of Armenian entries is not negligible… I will deal more with this discrepancy in my conclusion. To what can we attribute the paucity of entries to this last category? To tackle such an issue as this presentation attempts has its limitations. The limitation stems from the fact that almost a hundred years after the Armenian Genocide, literature regarding Ottoman official resistance to the mass killings is, at best, scarce. In a memorandum it released in 2001 the Zorian Institute underlines this difficulty:   1     As the leaders of the Ottoman Turkish government in 1915 were rounding up the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire for mass deportation and slaughter, a number of Turks risked their own lives to help Armenians escape certain death. There is no way to know today how many such individual acts of courage and humanity occurred in those tragic times. Our sources of information are largely anecdotal: family histories transmitted orally, autobiographies and personal memoirs, and the oral testimonies of survivors. These acts of heroism and kindness stand in stark contrast to the cruelest savagery displayed by the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide. Their importance is great, for several reasons. First, they are additional evidence of the Armenian Genocide. Secondly, they illustrate that, while there was indeed genocide, not all Turks supported it. Thirdly, these stories serve to reassure us of the human potential for courage and virtue.1 2-PARADIGMATIC INCONGRUITIES: INTENT VS. OUTCOME: The Intent paradigm treats the Ottoman Empire as a single unit with a command structure under CUP control. Importantly, the command structure had                                                              1 Samuel P. Oliner and Pearl M. Oliner, “Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe.” In Israel W. Charny, ed., Encyclopedia of Genocide, Vol. 2. (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1999), 496. See also Schulweis, Harold M., in Mordecai Paldiel, The Path of the Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust, (Hoboken, NJ: KTAV Publishing House, 1993), xii, xiii. 2    supposedly two layers, one official and one more secretive including trusted party- members. The latter was used to provide for a degree of deception by countermanding official orders with secret ones that effectively annulled the former. Moreover, the government engaged in a policy to destroy incriminating evidence by ordering the destruction of documents deemed dangerous. Despite such nuances, the Intent paradigm cannot explain why a large number of Armenian deportees survived in the so-called settlement areas within the 4th Army region.2 The neglect by scholars regarding this issue is surprising because Western diplomatic correspondence as well as Armenian and Turkish memoir literature formed an important source of information upon which most of the current literature is based. These sources provide a wealth of details, including a number of 4th Army documents, about opposition by Ahmed Djemal Pasha against Ottoman central government policies concerning Armenians. This data might have been utilized for a more careful analysis. For instance, in the case of Krikor Zohrab Effendi and Vartkes Serengulian Effendi’s3 murder, Djemal secured the arrest and execution of the two main perpetrators who were important CUP operatives.4 Thus, both the notion of a government cover-up and the idea that Ottoman military and political leaders were acting according to a well-coordinated conspiracy require revision.                                                              th 2  For a somewhat complete treatment of Ottoman official resistance in the 4 Ottoman Army zone see Hilmar Kaiser, “Regional Resistance to Central Government Policies: Ahmed Djemal Pasha, the Governors of Aleppo, and Armenian Deportees in the spring and summer of 1915”, Journal of Genocide Studies, vol. 12, Issues No. 3-4, 2010, 173-218.  3 Both were members of the Ottoman parliament and respected leaders of the Armenian community whom Tallat Pasha had ordered to appear in front of the military tribunal in Diyarbakir. 4  Ali Fuat Erden, Birinci Dunya Harbinde Suriye Hatıraları, Vol 1 (Istanbul: Halk Matbaası, 1954); Falih Rıfkı Atay, Zeytindağ (Istanbul: Hakimiyeti Milliye Matbaası, 1932), 120-121, 216-217.  3     These documents also challenge the works of many Turkish and pro-Turkish historians and authors who allege an Armenian conspiracy that had triggered an empire-wide uprising in the rear of the Ottoman army. The Armenians had supposedly cut Ottoman supply lines supporting the enemy' efforts. These assertions focus on a number of incidents like the so called “Defense of Van” in April and May 1915, and clashes at Zeitun in March 1915. The authors interconnected these events in order to prove an alleged master plan coordinated by Armenian revolutionaries located in Constantinople and abroad. However, this conspiracy theory lacks support from the records of the Ottoman 4th Army. No imminent rising was anticipated; people were deported for other reasons. The rebellion thesis ignores those.5 The legal definition of genocide calls for proof of intent. In this respect, demographic engineering has taken centre stage in recent scholarship. Authors draw a line from the uprooting and deportation of Ottoman Greeks in 1914 to the Armenian deportations in 1915. The argument is that the Ottoman government intended the Turkification of key provinces by settling Muslim refugees. Consequently, a resulting Armenian “surplus” population had to be dealt with, namely destroyed. The argument suggests that the implementation of the Turkification program and thus the acceptance of its consequences constituted intent for committing genocide. In this perspective, Ottoman Armenians had probably been doomed even before the start of World War I. Therefore, the actions of Armenian organizations as well as the course of the war had little impact and were only an excuse for carrying a conceived plan. And, consequently, the motives                                                               Yusuf Hala Oğlu, Facts on the Relocation of Armenians (1914-1918) (Ankara: Turkish 5 Historical Society, 2002). Yusuf Hala Oğlu, Sürgünden Soykırıma. Ermeni İddiaları (Ankara: Babıali Yayıncılı, 2006); Justin McCarthy, Esat Arslan, et al, The Armenian Rebellion at Van (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2006); Guenter Lewy, The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2005).  4    and actions of local and regional actors would not illuminate the early phase of the deportations. Within this paradigm, people are either a victim or just a tool of the overall CUP conspiracy.6 Far from simply imposing its decisions, the ministry quickly met with resistance from Djemal who doubted the wisdom of the central government's policies. Such demonstrations of independent judgment were not isolated incidents or without impact. Djemal guarded his authority within his crucial area of command and drastically intervened with officials who were under the orders of the Ministry of Interior. Thus, the outcome theory, which I adhere to, suggests that the notion of a unified body of genocidal conspirators exerting unrestrained control over the entire Ottoman Empire cannot be sustained. The opposition against Talaat's and the ruling CUP's policy was stronger than has been assumed so far, reaching into the leadership of the party. At its core stood Ahmed Djemal Pasha and with him a divergent group of officers and civilians. In introducing extensive documentation produced by Ottoman provincial and military authorities, we can now try to contextualize Ottoman central government directives. By so doing, we can fill in an important gap in the existing literature.7                                                              6  Taner Akçam, 'Ermeni Meselesi Hallolunmutur. Osmanlı Belgelerine Göre Savaş Yıllarında Ermenilere Yenelik Politikalar (Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları, 2008), 104. Akçam qualifies his thesis by stating that he has no direct proof of a single plan but argues that Semblances and continuities between Greek and Armenians cases of ethnic cleansing ('iki ayrı “temizlik” olayının') support his thesis. In contrast to Akçam, Fuat Dundar maintains that Ottoman military defeats set a programme of ethnic cleansing into motion. In this perspective, espionage incidents or armed clashes were only excuses for implementing the plan. Fuat Dndar, A Crime of Numbers. The Role of Statistics in the Armenian Question (1878-1918) (New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers, 2010), 72.  7  Little in the way of archival sources exists regarding the internal debate and the ultimate intention regarding the liquidation of the Armenian population. While the transcripts of the Istanbul Military Tribunal of 1919 shed some light on both the execution and the resistance to the deportations of Armenians in Yozgat and Trabzon, little is known about the interaction 5    3-PIONEERING WORK In the late 1980s and early 1990s a first and perhaps the only) attempt at writing on “Turkish Altruism during the Armenian Genocide” was made by Prof. Richard G. Hovannisian. Quoting from the paper (for which I was a research assistant): This study is based on data derived from 527 oral history interviews with Armenian survivors. 183 interviewees whose summaries indicate some instance of intervention were identified. In listening to these selected 183 interviews, my research assistant and I tried to determine the place of origin and age of the interviewees, the ethnic identity and social and economic status of the interveners, and the motives for the interventions. We looked particularly for cases in which humanitarian or altruistic motivations were clearly dominant. Obviously, it is difficult to make determinations relating to the motives for intervention or to develop socio-psychological profiles of the personalities involved. Not only is it impossible to speak to the principals themselves, but the survivors' explanations come more than a half-century after the fact and                                                                                                                                                                                                  between the Committee of Union and Progress and the bureaucracy, let alone the manner and degree to which local officials carried out the deportations throughout Anatolia. Ryan Gingeras, Sorrowful Shores: Violence, Ethnicity, and the End of the Ottoman Empire, 1912-1923 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 37.   6     may be colored or conditioned by time or by the stories of others.8 Of course, we have to also mention here the work of Prof. Donald Miller and his wife, Lorna Tourian Miller,9 but with the caveat that their book does not dwell long on the issue at hand, namely, helping Armenians survive the ordeal… A-Djelal Bey: Governor of Aleppo The main issue to underline here is that opposition against the central government’s policies did exist in the Southern Sector, the 4th Army area of operations, which was under the command of Djemal Pasha (Vilayets of Aleppo, Der Zor, Baghdad, Syria, etc…). However, it appeared to be limited to a handful of local governors (Valis Mutasarrifs and kaimakams). While some kaimakams were murdered in response to their stand, Djelal Bey, the governor of Aleppo was simply removed from his post and was relocated to Konia.10 B-Ali Su’ad Bey: Governor of Deir-es-Zor Ali Su’ad Bey, of Arab origin, was the Turkish prefect of Deyr-el-Zor, the place where Armenian deportees were dumped into the desert between 1915 and 1916. He was nicknamed “the good governor” because he did everything in his power to                                                              8  Richard G. Hovannisian, “The Question of Altruism during the Armenian Genocide of 1915.” In Pearl M Oliner, et al., ed., Embracing the Other: Philosophical, Psychological, and Historical Perspectives on Altruism. New York and London: New York University Press, 1992.  9  Donald E. Miller and Lorna Tourian Miller, Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).  10  Djelal Bey, “Ermeni Vekayii ve Esbab ve Tesiratı”, Vakit, No. 407, 409, 410, 10, 12, December 1918.   7    save the greatest possible number of people from certain death. He also organized the facilities required for their survival and for the care of the weakest in the transit camps at Ras-ul-Ain and in the town of Deyr-el-Zor itself, the capital of the region bearing the same name. He ensured that these camps were protected by his own police force from the attacks of Arab tribes and had a large hospital and an entire new quarter built to house the Armenian families. This quarter was in fact named Souadiè, in his honor. He turned his own home into a shelter for orphaned Armenian children and had a large wooden bridge built over the Euphrates River in order to employ Armenian laborers, thereby saving them from deportation. In the early months of 1916, the Turkish authorities in Aleppo charged with exterminating the Armenians asked the prefect of Deyr-el-Zor to account for the “adverse” situation that had arisen in the region, ordering him by telegram to stick to the established plan of “sending them into the desert”. Ali Su’ad Bey telegraphed back that he had no means of transport at his disposal to obey their orders. He also added that “if the purpose in which you are insisting is to massacre them, I cannot do it and nor will I allow others to do so.” This answer cost him his job and ultimately his life. In July 1916 he was removed from Deyr-el-Zor. He was himself deported to Baghdad where he was killed. The cruel fate of the “Little Armenia” created by the “good governor” was thus sealed. Ali Su’ad was replaced by Salih Zeki Bey, who obeyed his superiors’ orders to the letter, zealously proceeding with the slaughter of the Armenian population. Dickran Boyadjian writes the following about Su’ad Bey: According to witnesses, Ali Suad Bey did what he could to save Armenian children. An American witness recalled: A few months ago, 30,000 Armenians in 8     various camps outside of the town were…under the protection of the Mutessarif (governor) Ali Suad Bey…the deportees are grateful for he tried to lighten their miseries…The mitigating circumstances, under which the Armenians of Der-el-Zor existed, became the cause for a denunciation at the Central Authorities in Constantinople. The “guilty” Ali Suad Bey was sent to Baghdad and replaced by Zeki Bey who is well known for his cruelty and barbarism.11 C-Halide Edip-Adivar In 1916-1917, Halide Edip acted as Ottoman inspector for schools in Damascus, Beirut, and Mount Lebanon. Students at these schools were mostly Armenian. However, there were some Arab, Kurdish, and Turkish orphans as well.12 According to a teacher who worked briefly under her, Halide Edip “was at the head of an orphanage of 1,000 children in the mountains. These were mostly Armenian children. She said, “Their names are changed (to Moslem names) but they are children; they don't know what religion means. Now, they must be fed and clothed and kept safe. She didn't say what would be afterwards.”13 According to Halide Edip, these children were given Muslim names under orders from Djemal Pasha. She records a 1916 conversation she had with Djemal Pasha, thus:                                                              11  Dickran H. Boyjian, Armenia: The Case for a Forgotten Genocide, (New Jersey: Education Book Crafted, 1972).  12 Halide Edip Edivar, Memoirs of Halide Edip, (New York, London: The Century Co., 1926), 431-471. 13 Vahakn Dadrian, History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus (Reprint: Beerghahn Books, 2003). The quote is attributed to Prof. Herbert Fisher of Sheffield University. 9    I said: “... Why do you allow Armenian children to be called by Moslem names? It looks like turning the Armenians into Moslems, and history someday will revenge it on the coming generation of Turks.” “You are an idealist,” [Djemal Pasha] answered gravely, “... Do you believe that by turning a few hundred Armenian boys and girls Moslem I think I benefit my race? You have seen the Armenian orphanages in Damascus run by Armenians. There is no room in those; there is no money to open another Armenian orphanage. This is a Moslem orphanage, and only Moslem orphans are allowed. ... When I hear of wandering and starving children, I sent them to Aintoura. I have to keep them alive. I do not care how. I cannot bear to see them die in the streets.” “And afterward?” I asked. “Do you mean after the war?” he asked. “After the war they will go back to their people. I hope none is too small to realize his race.” “I will never have anything to do with such an orphanage.” 10     He shook his head. “You will,” he said; “if you see them in misery and suffering, you will go to them and not think for a moment about their names and religion...”14 Halide Edip's account of her inspectorships emphasizes her humanitarian efforts and her struggles to come to terms with the violence of the situation. The account of one acquaintance, however, accuses her of “calmly planning with [Djemal Pasha] forms of human tortures for Armenian mothers and young women" and taking on “the task of making Turks of their orphaned children.”15 A U.S. High Commissioner refers to her as a "chauvinist" and someone who is "trying to rehabilitate Turkey."16 On the other hand, German historian Hilmar Kaiser says: "And even if you’re a Turkish nationalist, that doesn’t make you a killer. There were people who were famous Turkish nationalists like Halide Edip; she advocated assimilation of Armenians, but she very strongly opposed any kind of murder."17 D-Djemal Pasha He was known among the local Arab inhabitants as al-Saffah, "the Blood Shedder"(Beheader), being responsible for the hanging of Many Lebanese and                                                              14 Ibid., 428-429. 15 Aghavnie Yeghenian, The Turkish Jeanne d'Arc: An Armenian Picture of Remarkable Halide Edib Hanoum (letter to editor). New York Times, (September 17, 1922), page 97. 16 Mark Lambert Bristol. 17 "Historian challenges politically motivated 1915 arguments", Today's Zaman, March 22, 2009. 11    Syrian nationalists (Muslims and Christians alike), who were accused of “treason” on 6 May 1916, in Damascus and in Beirut.18 At the end of 1915, Djemal is said to have started secret negotiations with the Allies for ending the war (he proposed himself to take over the Arab territories). These secret negotiations came to nothing, in part because the Allies reportedly could not agree on the future territory of the Ottoman Empire. Recent scholarship, however, has cast doubt on Djemal having ever made any such overtures to the Allies.19 To be sure, some authors emphasize a degree of dissent within the CUP over strategy. Raymond Kvorkian argues that Ahmed Djemal considered breaking with the CUP and establishing an independent power base in Syria. Since such ambitions would depend on the cooperation of the Entente powers, Djemal treated Armenian deportees better than other CUP leaders in order to use them as a bargaining chip. Moreover, he supposedly wished to use the Armenian labor force and, perhaps, to dispose of his victims after having exploited them.20 There is yet another reason that must be looked into: if Djemal really envisioned the creation of                                                              18 William Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East: World War I and the End of the Ottoman Order (Boulder: Westview Press, 2004). 146-167. 19 Sean McMeekin, The Russian Origins of the First World War. Cambridge, (MA: Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 2011), 198-201. McMeekins research doesn’t show, without reasonable doubt that such a venture was not in the works. Further research is needed to arrive at a certain conclusion regarding the scheme. 20 Raymond H. Kevorkian, Le sort des d port s dans les camps de concentration de Syrie et de M sopotamie, Revue de d'histoire arm nienne contemporaine, Vol 2, 1998, 59; Idem, Le genocide, 840. Kevorkian ignores, however, evidence on Djemal's action that contradicted such claims; see Hilmar Kaiser, At the Crossroads of Der Zor. Death, Survival, and Humanitarian Resistance in Aleppo, 1914-1917, in collaboration with Luther and Nancy Eskijian, (Reading: Taderon Press, 2001), 54, 61. 12    an Arab state under his rule, he knew well that Armenian merchants and artisans would be instrumental for the formation and enrichment of the middle class in such a state and, hence, the well-being of such an Armenian community would be a matter of policy… Ahmed Djemal Pasha was the commander of the Ottoman 4th Army and controlled a crucial area, which was to become the destinations of deported Armenians. As military commander, he had extensive resources at his disposal and exerted a considerable degree of influence on the civilian authorities who were depending otherwise on the orders of the Ministry of Interior led by Talaat Bey. He had his own ideas about settlement areas, the execution of deportations, the provisioning and reimbursement of deportees and, most importantly, also on their protection. Briefly put, he advocated some deportations and even initiated some others, but wanted to have them organized in a way that did not mean destruction. His orders for the protection of deportees were not empty words, as prominent CUP operatives found out when they were convicted by a 4th Army court martial and executed. At times, Djemal cooperated with Armenian Catholicos Sahag II to assist the deportees and allowed aid missions into Zor that met with utter opposition from Talaat. Djemal used strong language, condemning the central government's policies and made officials personally responsible for the well-being of Armenians.21                                                              21 196-DH. FR, 497-95, Djemal to Talaat, Aleppo (HQ), 16 November 1915, No 22079/6283. Qurotd in Kaiser, Rigional Resistance. 13    E-CONCLUSION As promised, I have to come back to the question I raised at the introduction of my essay: why is it that there is abundantly more literature generated regarding the rescuing Armenians by the victimizer side by the victims themselves while, on the other hand, one is struck by the paucity of literature regarding Ottoman official resistance to the Armenian genocide? One does not have to ponder for long to find a simple answer to this question. The real culprit is the decades-long denial policy of the Turkish government, which, in itself, has led to a textual freeze, in terms of generating memoirs and academic literature regarding the subject under discussion. When your government denies that its predecessor, i.e. the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire, had committed genocide against one of its constituent populations and hammers such denial into law that is punishable by imprisonment, how can one muster the courage necessary to write about such acts of intervention and rescue, which, ironically, would bring forth the humanity of the victimizer side. This is a delicate matter indeed. The perpetrator has thus far chosen to conceal the humanity of many of its people for the simple reason of covering its crime. What is the solution one might ask? I would venture to say that the Turkish nation today is not as homogeneous today regarding this issue as it was forced to be during decades of nationalist rule that forbade any utterance regarding the subject of the Armenian genocide. We are now witnessing the growth of non- governmental entities that are challenging the strictly rigid governmental position regarding the issue and more and more young Turkish citizens are starting to ask the hard questions that their forbears could not. 14     This is the 99th year since the horrible events of 1915.Time is working against us, since those Turks who possess the historical memory of the events, like their Armenian counterparts, are fading from history, if they have not already faded. We must act fast if we intend to really document such acts of resistance and rescue. Otherwise it will be a loss primarily of the Turkish nation itself. The ball is now in their field and I know that they are very good soccer players… 15